This invention relates to fabric softeners which may be used for the treatment of fabrics after washing.
"Fabric softeners" are normally understood to be preparations formulated or designed for formulation in water and containing one or more active substances which are used in detergents and cleaning preparations to provide fabrics with a soft feel. Preparations of the type in question normally contain one or more cationic surfactants which are capable of imparting a soft feel to fabrics treated with them. Cationic surfactants which have been proposed for this purpose include, in particular, water-insoluble quaternary ammonium compounds in which the ammonium nitrogen atom must contain at least two long-chain C.sub.16 -C.sub.18 alkyl radicals or at least one overlong radical, for example containing from 32 to 36 carbon atoms, to ensure that the fabric softener has adequate softening properties. Quaternary ammonium compounds such as these have been produced in large quantities, generally by elaborate processes, specifically for the production of fabric softeners.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,024, it is proposed to use long-chain alkyl or alkenyl monocarboxylic acids in addition to water-insoluble cationic surfactants of the type in question in order considerably to improve the softening effect of a fabric softener. However, one of the disadvantages of state-of-the-art preparations of this type lies in the elaborate sythesis of the water-insoluble quaternary ammonium compounds containing at least two long-chain alkyl radicals.
An object of the present invention is to avoid the disadvantages known from the prior art, more especially the use of fabric softener constituents prepared by elaborate syntheses, and to provide fabric softeners of which the active substances may be prepared by simple chemical syntheses from inexpensive raw materials or from intermediate products capable of synthesis on a large scale. It has surprisingly been found that fabric softeners having a good fabric softening effect can be obtained simply by mixing certain fatty acids and fatty amines or corresponding quaternary ammonium compounds of the fatty amines which may be inexpensively obtained on a large scale from natural raw materials by simple oleochemical syntheses.